The Controversial History of Mercenaries

Following the release of Rockstar Games’ seminal Grand Theft Auto 3 in 2001, GTA clones of all kinds flooded the market, each one angling to capitalize on the sandbox game’s popularity. That era of gaming lasted well into the 2010s, giving birth to Mafia, The Getaway, and Saints Row. Even brand licenses imitated GTA’s winning formula—Scarface, The Godfather, and The Sopranos received video game adaptations in 2006 to varying degrees of success.

With 2005’s Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction, developer Pandemic Studios delivered a GTA clone that bucked the common trend, sidestepping crime-ridden urban environments to instead use a politically unstable Korea as its setting. The end result offered a revolutionary experience whose main rival made it to market in the 2008 sequel, World in Flames.

Rather than gangsters chasing the lap of luxury, Mercenaries starred guns-for-hire caught in the middle of political upheaval. As opposed to crime bosses and kingpins, characters in Mercenaries more often than not conferred with factions that represented the interests of entire countries. Critics and players considered the series a nice change of pace, nicely punctuated by Pandemic’s unapologetically over-the-top gameplay.

And though a third entry may have further expanded upon Pandemic’s militaristic answer to the open-world chaos of Grand Theft Auto, Mercenaries died with the unceremonious shuttering of the development studio. It was a death whose impact lingered as open-world games evolved beyond the parameters previously solidified by Rockstar and later adjusted by the likes of Pandemic Studios.

This is the history of Mercenaries.

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[NotParticularlyWitty]

What a series and what a studio. The fact EA shuttered them was always my introduction to how terrible a publisher they are.

[SxD]

Playgrounds of Destruction was such an amazing game. The score, the setting, the chaos. the destruction. Simply one of gaming history's greatest game.

[Smokejumper]

Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction is an absolute favourite of mine. Being able to capture anyone in the deck of 52, being able to ferry around allies to start firefights at enemy bases and call in vehicles for them was such a great time for me.
I would love to see a remaster, it absolutely deserves one.
RIP Pandemic

[Stew_Pid]

Original mercenaries is one of the greatest games ever made. We need a remake. That level of destruction with updated graphics would be awesome.

[ARIXANDRE]

This series was Pandemic at its peak. Fully destructible buildings and the Deck of 52 were game changers. A huge loss.

[solblackguy]

One of my most memorable experiences with the first Mercenaries was calling an airstrike on a building but I was too close and had to run from the blast. Just at the last second, I jumped into a nearby ravine that saved me.

[gadgetk]

I loved both games, and am actually playing the first one again right now. Finding out that once again EA is responsible for the death of another game series and studio that I liked, sadly doesn’t surprise me. EA is a bloody serial killer of good things

[levitonin]

that climate of the first Mercenerios gave greater immersion compared to the second. Walking around the map gave a realistic feeling of a war scenario. Hunting the Deck there in the far reaches of the game world would take you to epic locations, colossal bases that were difficult to invade. The radio always announcing war events added an extra touch of immersion. This game is definitely one of my favorites. Ps: destroying bridges in this game was awesome.

[labcdel]

Mercenaries 2 world in flames. Still one of my all time favorite games. Amazing gem lost to time.

[BaleFieldAce]

These games really did deserve better. Playground of destruction was one of my pivotal games growing up.

[martindrengenxbox]

EA has a nasty record of dissolving awesome studios.

[alone]

Man, I'm from Venezuela, and I remember when this game came out. I was still in school, and me and my friends were so hyped to play a game where we'd kill our president hahahahahah.

There was an attempt to ban the game outright, and it was a pain in the ass to find it in stores. But, since most games back in Venezuela were pirated, regulation was pretty difficult.

Man, good times.

[smothdude]

Mercs 2 has one of the best trailer songs ever. Just totally epic and while I never actually played the game, that trailer is forever stuck with me haha

[aceofhearts]

Pandemic was an amazing studio. After I found out EA ruined them and stole from us all the future games they would have made I stopped buying EA games. It has been 10 years and EA has not received a single penny from me. Also, RIP Westood Studios another great studio taken down by EA

[ColombianThunder]

My high school video game design teacher was a dev on this series. He talked a lot about crunch and being forced to release the games knowing they were full of bugs.

[DanTheFemaleFootMuncher]

''GTA CLONE'' is such a dumb term and one of the reasons why Rockstar has gotten so lazy due to lack of proper competition.

[SD]

The first Mercenaries game was amazing, the open world to do what you wanted, the Mafia shop where you can order weapons and vehicles was great, choosing which faction to befriend and reaping the benefits.

Man it was awesome, sad to see the sequel wasn't that good, and even sadder to see the studio Pandemic die RIP.

I hope one day we get a new Mercenaries game, even though "Just Cause" is similar to it, I still would like a game similar to the original one.

[willianyano]

I'll never forget Playground of Destruction, playing it on my cousin's PS2 in Brazil was magical. The atmosphere in that game is envied by a lot of AAA titles of today, the freedom given to the player was something i had never witnessed before. The game was much more than "explosions and cool shit".

Unlike the shallow experience that is Just Cause.

[Valiyus]

Mercenaries at the time, when it came out, was insanely revolutionary in my little boy eyes. This game showed me what open world gameplay could be and the amount of destruction you could rain down on people was so much fun. I was super disappointed by Merc 2, I felt they lost all their creativity and lost their way, it was such a shame.

[austinoakes]

My little brother and I used to play "pretend" all the time, and we loved the first Mercenaries game so much that we came up with our own version of the concept to play in real life with toy guns. I played "The Merc" and my little brother played all of the other characters, his favorite being the SWEDISH MAFIA LEADER named ORZEGA.
That's right, in our make-believe Mercenaries game, the Russian mafia was replaced by Swedish Mafia.... I don't even think Sweden has a mafia...